Image Comics Announce New Modern Western Drama ‘That Texas Blood’ With A First Look

Criminal colorist and first time solo artist Jacob Phillips and writer Chris Condon are teaming up to bring you a new ongoing series detective series, That Texas Blood, coming from Image Comics this May. Set in the dusty, Middle American state of Texas, it looks like a good ol’ fashioned Western, but set against a contemporary backdrop.

Sheriff Joe Bob Coates has always lived in Fort Lehane. He’s always been in Ambrose County. It’s always been in his blood. It’s a Texas thing. But the crimes don’t stop. And they don’t get easier.
For some reason… they keep getting worse. And worse. And… Well. It’s Texas. And Joe Bob is tough. Maybe he’s tough enough to fight it. To last. It’s in his blood, after all. That Texas Blood.

Write about what you know? Well, it’s certainly advice Condon has taken onboard for this new book, if his official statement backing this new launch is to go by (and it is):

I’ve always had a fondness for the West. When you’re a kid it’s the Old West—cowboys and six-shooters, the lawless frontier of Deadwood and Tombstone. As you grow older you learn the truth about the place—you see it as it is today. The character, the grit, the creeping darkness of that vast landscape. You learn it through Portis, Thompson, the Coens, through books, television, or the news. Texas is America’s mystical land, where laws don’t necessarily apply, where right isn’t always right and a gun can be on every hip and every itchy finger ready to pull the trigger. I wrote a story about this place, moreso the feeling it evoked. The character that grew from that wasn’t a sinister villain but a good man with a complicated relationship with his place in the world. What came were dreams of Texas. Dreams of a sheriff trying to make right in a wrong world. What came was Joe Bob. He’s almost like a friend now. I hope you’ll feel the same.

That Texas Blood #1 is out Wednesday, May 27th from Image Comics, with a preview of the debut issue below: